When DH and I were house hunting, we saw some questionable paint jobs.

One house had horrible paint in every room, but the bedroom was the absolute worst. They'd painted the walls with that thick paint that you use to create a sponged texture on the walls. They'd painted the bedroom to look like cracked leather by sponging on black, deep red, and brown. It looked like a torture chamber, honestly, rather than leather, because it resembled dried blood more than anything. The worst part? The bedroom had a tray ceiling, and they'd done the trim around the inside of the tray ceiling the same way.

Then there was a house that had one room with a really weird vaulted ceiling. The ceiling was done in wood paneling, sort of like bead board, and they'd painted the ceiling BRIGHT bright green. Like seriously neon eye-burning green. Then they'd painted the border around the walls with watermelon slices in neon green and pink.

Still another house had a hand painted border in the kitchen that ran just above the counter tops. The woman had painted little cups of coffee with curly "steam" rising from them. The problem was she painted both the cups and the contents with varying shades of brown, along with the steam. She was also not an especially good artist, so it looked for all the world like there were little steaming cups of poo all along the kitchen walls.

This happened to a friend of mine. She and her husband rented a lovely old farmhouse. The owner had lived there with 3 teenagers, and allowed them to paint their rooms however they liked. Sound good? It should, except:

Boy's room 1 was painted all over - ceiling, walls, etc - in camo. Huge patterned camo.Boy's room 2 was painted all over black, with a glow in the dark moon in one corner covering the ceiling and both wallsGirls room was painted day glo pink, with giant fluorescent flowers

It took her many, many, many buckets of primer to cover all that fluorescing.

Ha! I'd happily let my kids paint their rooms whatever color they want, as long as they're the ones that helped repaint it when they move out or get tired of it

When I was little, my parents let me draw on my bedroom walls. Shocked my friends when they came over.

The room was redone when I was older.

Actually, now I'm remembering a HS friend of mine; he painted his room white with a red border around each wall (vertical and horizontal) and then wrote Who lyrics over the space with a black sharpie.

I once saw a house with 2 bedrooms with a chain and hook lock on the outside. (was visiting) Turns out that they were little kids and the parents didn't want to pay all that money for child gates so they locked their kids in the room.

I once babysat for a family who did this. They told me over and over again to make sure the doors were locked when I put them to bed. The two kids (aged 3 and 5) weren't even allowed to go to the bathroom in the night - they were both still in nappies. It made me feel a little bit sick, to be honest, and I didn't babysit for them again.

Our kids rooms are all upstairs with a bathroom and their bedrooms being the only thing off that hallway. We have a hook and eye lock on the outside of that hallway door as we have a problem with our oldest getting up at night and sneaking treats. So the kids are locked into their little wing of the house, but they have access to a bathroom.

Still another house had a hand painted border in the kitchen that ran just above the counter tops. The woman had painted little cups of coffee with curly "steam" rising from them. The problem was she painted both the cups and the contents with varying shades of brown, along with the steam. She was also not an especially good artist, so it looked for all the world like there were little steaming cups of poo all along the kitchen walls.

Have any of you'all ever seen a small banquet room with low ceilings, white marble floors and mirrored walls? You could probably fit at least eight to twelve 12-tops in it (maybe more if you squeezed). Now imagine that it's inner-tube shaped. And the inner-tube has lost air, and has been pushed together so that the hole in the middle is gone and the two sides are touching. With one side larger than the other and a lighted glass brick wall as part of the middle and some of the narrow side isn't mirrored. Just almost everywhere else. And there's a bump out of the smaller side that you think could be a separate room, but there aren't any doors, just a narrow areas that end up opening back into the bigger room. Got that? Okay, and a the part where the thin side opens out to the fat side, there is a door. Except not a door. It's really just a collapsible screen on rollers, painted black, with one side attached with hinges to the side of the door opening. So being a screen on wheels, it's open near the top and bottom. And when you roll the screen open, you find a full bath. About 4 feet wide and 15 feet long. With a tub/shower at the end, and one side of the room lined with a countertop and a mirror all along the countertop. And then the toilet and sink are near the far back near the tub.

That was the daylight basement of a perfectly lovely and otherwise normal house.

The first house we bought had poppy wallpaper in the bathroom. Kind of like this:only the poppies were acid pink, about 4 inches across. We couldn't paint over it, because it was a very slick, almost plastic feel to it. Paint just peeled right off. But the wallpaper didn't. They must have put it up with white glue, right over the wallboard. We managed to get it off, but had to replace it with more wallpaper, since the wallboard was too damaged to paint.

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Common sense is not a gift, but a curse. Because thenyou have to deal with all the people who don't have it. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Have any of you'all ever seen a small banquet room with low ceilings, white marble floors and mirrored walls? You could probably fit at least eight to twelve 12-tops in it (maybe more if you squeezed). Now imagine that it's inner-tube shaped. And the inner-tube has lost air, and has been pushed together so that the hole in the middle is gone and the two sides are touching. With one side larger than the other and a lighted glass brick wall as part of the middle and some of the narrow side isn't mirrored. Just almost everywhere else. And there's a bump out of the smaller side that you think could be a separate room, but there aren't any doors, just a narrow areas that end up opening back into the bigger room. Got that? Okay, and a the part where the thin side opens out to the fat side, there is a door. Except not a door. It's really just a collapsible screen on rollers, painted black, with one side attached with hinges to the side of the door opening. So being a screen on wheels, it's open near the top and bottom. And when you roll the screen open, you find a full bath. About 4 feet wide and 15 feet long. With a tub/shower at the end, and one side of the room lined with a countertop and a mirror all along the countertop. And then the toilet and sink are near the far back near the tub.

That was the daylight basement of a perfectly lovely and otherwise normal house.

Another house I lived in as a kid had a window over the kitchen sink that looked into the family room. The family room had been added after the house was built and they didn't bother to remove that window.

That set up is very common around here in houses with new rooms attached to kitchens. They remove the window panes themselves leaving the frame and put a small ledge over the lower edge of the frame. It promptly becomes relabeled a "pass through" (a way to move food or beverages from the kitchen to the family room or dirty dishes back into the kitchen without leaving the room you're in) and it is considered a selling point! LOL!

Have any of you'all ever seen a small banquet room with low ceilings, white marble floors and mirrored walls? You could probably fit at least eight to twelve 12-tops in it (maybe more if you squeezed). Now imagine that it's inner-tube shaped. And the inner-tube has lost air, and has been pushed together so that the hole in the middle is gone and the two sides are touching. With one side larger than the other and a lighted glass brick wall as part of the middle and some of the narrow side isn't mirrored. Just almost everywhere else. And there's a bump out of the smaller side that you think could be a separate room, but there aren't any doors, just a narrow areas that end up opening back into the bigger room. Got that? Okay, and a the part where the thin side opens out to the fat side, there is a door. Except not a door. It's really just a collapsible screen on rollers, painted black, with one side attached with hinges to the side of the door opening. So being a screen on wheels, it's open near the top and bottom. And when you roll the screen open, you find a full bath. About 4 feet wide and 15 feet long. With a tub/shower at the end, and one side of the room lined with a countertop and a mirror all along the countertop. And then the toilet and sink are near the far back near the tub.

That was the daylight basement of a perfectly lovely and otherwise normal house.

The house my ex-husband still owns has a half-bath in the hallway, across from the laundry room. Just toilet and sink, mirror over sink, towel rack. Small room. And it was SALMON. Vivid, orange-pink salmon. It was so small that we couldn't remove the toilet when we painted (we opted for a nice, soothing sage green), so behind the commode is still salmon.

I had toilets in two bathrooms replaced and painted as far as I could behind the toilet in the third bathroom that I painted in this house.

I've also learned how to take the TANK off the back of the toilet, paint, let it dry, then replace it (with new gaskets/washers - just in case). It's not as easy as ignoring that area - but it is easier than cleaning paint off the back of the toilet tank after it dries.

Did you know that sometimes the back of the tank hasn't been glazed so it's "absorbent" of paint. Not good whe you've used orange creamsicle or red paint on the walls..........

When DH and I were house hunting, we saw some questionable paint jobs.

One house had horrible paint in every room, but the bedroom was the absolute worst. They'd painted the walls with that thick paint that you use to create a sponged texture on the walls. They'd painted the bedroom to look like cracked leather by sponging on black, deep red, and brown. It looked like a torture chamber, honestly, rather than leather, because it resembled dried blood more than anything. The worst part? The bedroom had a tray ceiling, and they'd done the trim around the inside of the tray ceiling the same way.

A house we lived in, we painted our room a deep burgundy red color. We just loved it.

When we were selling it, the realtor made us change it after hearing "blood cave" for the third time from buyers. (we did, a nice boring beige)

Ever so slightly off topic, but I just moved into a house that's across the street from the old town cemetery. Everyone I've mentioned this too is jealous. Apparently, the foliage is gorgeous in the fall, and the cemetery is a favorite walking/jogging spot. (No bicycles allowed.)

I've taken a few walks through the place. There are graves dating back to the 1700s (that's pretty old for the US). There might be older ones--the town was founded in the 1600s--I need to find out when they started using this cemetery. Although I did spot one recent burial from 2001--I'm guessing it was an old, old family plot. Families must have purchased large burial lots, because there is a huge mix of graves--ones from the early 1800s right next to ones from the early 1900s, mostly with some family name in common. And one part of the cemetery is a Native American burial ground, but I haven't found that yet--it's a huge cemetery. You can tell that the fashion in grave markers changed drastically over time--there are plots with granite curbs bordering them, and plots with huge central markers and smaller stones marking individual graves and everything in between.

It's not creepy at all. It looks rather like a large park that just happens to have a lot of small stone monuments in it.

A cemetery in the backyard is enough to keep some people away, but how about a skeleton in the house....and in full view?

Reminds me of the documentary I saw about a South American village. People had 800+ year old ancestor skeletons in a special spot in the house or the yard, talked to / prayed to the ancestor, left it special gifts, etc

I could do that if I left the US and went to Ireland, Scotland, France, Sweden or England and dug up an 800-yr-old ancestor, but I'm not feeling that ambitious today.